“That is what they said.”
“You also said we might be able to buy a place next year.”
“We still might.”
“With what money?”
Terrence glanced toward Richard. “This isn’t appropriate in front of everyone.”
Natalie laughed once. There was no humor in it.
“You’ve been talking about my parents’ house in front of people they don’t know. You can answer me in their hallway.”
David closed the ownership papers. “The lender inquiry came to me because their representative requested confirmation that the proposed borrowers could convey or encumber the property. They cannot.”
Richard sat down heavily on the bench near the door.
I watched him reread his own signature on the lease. He had signed without considering what the words protected. He had trusted Terrence with those same pages because Terrence wore a good suit and used the right terms.
“I told him I could get a better deal than the option price,” Terrence said finally.
Natalie stared. “How?”
“I thought the owner was an investment firm. Firms negotiate.”
“Using my parents as what?”
“Tenants willing to buy.”
“And us living here?”
“It would show a plan for the property.”
She waited. Terrence looked down.
“You wanted them to sign whatever you arranged,” she said.
“I wanted everybody to benefit.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
I did not know whether Terrence had planned to cheat them. David did not claim he had. A lender inquiry and an ambitious proposal were not proof of a scheme.
But he had kept the proposal from Natalie while encouraging her to move into my old room. He had presented possibility as certainty, and my family had been ready to clear a child from the table for it.
